Beyond the Sword Sample Match part 3

Beyond the Sword Sample Match

Here we go. Take a look at the screenshot below, with the colored circles.

The red circle indicates my starting "military" unit, the Scout. Usually, I get a Warrior to start off with. This time, I'm getting a Scout due to my traits. The Scout is worthless in battle, although he'll survive well against wild animals, and he gets to move faster than Warriors. Finally, Scouts get better results from "popping goodie huts," which means to activate the "tribal villages" by moving a unit onto it.

In this case, I'm lucky that a goodie hut is just south of my other starting unit. The goodie hut is in blue (the circle there is not drawn by me, but rather the game itself), and my Settler is just north of it circled in yellow.

The blue circle, in fact, is one you'll see often. When you have a unit selected that can be used for tasks, such as Workers or Settlers, you'll see blue circles where the game recommends you go. In this case, my Scout is selected, so the game is merely drawing my attention to the fact that a goodie hut is nearby. The goodie hut is, however, three tiles away from the Scout. It would take two turns to get there, and it's not worth it anyway, as you'll see in a moment.

Now, the area I circled in green is to bring your attention to the icons on the land. I have an option enabled (one that you can turn on just above the minimap in the bottom-right corner) that lets me see how many units of production any given tile produces. Food is represented by bread, production for units and buildings is represented by hammers, and commerce (cash money!) is represented by the gold coin.

Growth is important to me and my strategy. Growth comes from food surplus, and you can see that there are two tiles to my Settler's left that produce three units of food each. That will lead to some serious growth, even without upgrades. Also, we're right next to a river, which will automatically give the city some health. The only way this would be better is if we had an ocean bordering our Settler as well.

Now, generally speaking, you'll want to found your first city where your first Settler is standing. Every turn you waste moving that Settler is one more turn where your rivals are getting a jump on research and religion. At most, you'll only want to move one turn to get to a better location; it's just wasteful to found a city one tile away from ocean, but for your first city, you may want to found it two tiles away if that's where your Settler is standing.

We've actually got a decent location here. Like I said, it would be better if we had some ocean, but we'll find some eventually. (There is an argument to made for having a landlocked capital anyway. If the world goes to war, at least you won't have to worry about your capital being bombarded by a navy.) So, I tell my Settler to found the city, and I send my Scout manually to the north to cut through the fog.

It might be tough to see, but my green city radius actually encompassed the goodie hut. If that happens, you'll pop it anyway without needing to worry about getting a unit on it.

Now I've got the option to order my new city to build a unit. Seeing as how I have no military whatsoever, I order it to build a Warrior. The game is afoot!

Turn 1

My Scout continues north, and I am prompted to select a technology to start researching.

As you'll see later, selecting what to research is not a matter of following the "best path" through the tech tree. Sometimes, you'll have to be reactionary and select a technology based on circumstances. If a war is going on or you expect one, you should pick techs that lead to better units, for example.

For this first turn though, we'll want to go on a path to get some religion. Religion plays a very important role in game strategy, through several layers, and we'll want to get one as soon as we can. Early religions come directly or indirectly from the Mysticism. A lot of civilizations start with Mysticism; we don't. So, that's what I'm picking for our starting research. Besides, we'll get access to our unique building, the Stele.

Not much else to do for now, or for a little while.

Turn 6

Five turns pass, and my Scout has made some great discoveries to the northwest. One is a goodie hut, which gets me the technology Archery for free. This is a huge advantage, because Archers are far and away the best defensive units in the opening turns of the game. Plus, we get the Mysticism technology, setting us up for a religion.

As you may be able to see, my Scout has made two geographical discoveries that help me out. One is the presence of snow, which means I'm very close to the northern edge of the map. This means there will be few, if any, reasons I'll need to worry about my northern border. This means I can focus on expansion in one direction, and if we go to war, I know one "front" that doesn't exist. Remember, during war, we don't want to pull a Hitler by fighting on multiple fronts.

Second, my Scout discovered the ocean. Like real life, the best way to get information is to follow water. And now, if we follow the coast south, we'll have a good idea about the size of our continent. Either way, with the ocean relatively close, we'll be able to have an oceanic city pretty soon.

So, what to do after Mysticism? Polytheism and Meditation are both options. The former leads to Hinduism, and the latter leads to Buddhism. Meditation takes fewer turns... so we'll go with Polytheism.

Why? Because I'm trying to outthink the computer here. If there are any civilizations that have Mysticism, they will immediately go for a religion as quickly as possible. That will mean they will go for Meditation (and Buddhism) because they'll get to it quicker. So assuming the AI wants Buddhism, we'll go for Hinduism because then we'll have a leg up.

Otherwise, my Scout continues doing what he does best.

Turn 15

Huh, this is odd... I'm only one turn out from Polytheism, and no one has yet discovered Buddhism through Meditation. Very, very strange.

Okay, check out the screen shot, especially the circled part...

That is a lot of coastline. Well, at least more than I anticipated. Crap... I guess the ocean is farther away than I thought. Maybe an oceanic city will have to wait. Still, I found some good spots for future cities.

Also during this time I met Fredrick, the leader of the German civilization. Or rather, he found me. When you get first contact, as you can see from the left screenshot below, you have two options: immediately declare war, or declare peace. It's really stupid to pick a fight this early, especially with my strategy. So, I ask say that there will peace in our time.

Ironically, this is also when my Warrior, on the right screenshot, gets created in Aksum. Heh. With my Scout still moving, I tell my Warrior to "fortify" with the F key. This means he goes completely defensive, staying in the city and guarding it from enemies.

Now, what next for my city? It's decision time here... A Worker would be useful to help get the land going to improve the city's growth in the long-term. However, building a Worker paralyzes a city's growth in the short-term. Remember I said that surplus food makes a city grow? Workers and Settlers need food to be constructed, so it's a matter of whether I want to stop my growth now for improvements later.

I believe it's actually against my best interest to stop Aksum's growth right now, so I'm picking the Stele. This will also help push the borders, and give me an excuse to open the city screen to show you what culture is all about. Double-click the "city plate" just below the city to open it.

In the bottom-left corner, you see a purple bar. It says "Fledgling (+4/turn)." "Fledgling" means the city's culture level; pretty crappy now, huh? The +4/turn indicates that the city gains four culture points, or CPs, per turn. If you hover the mouse over the bar, you'll see this...

The top part of that little box says the city has 60 of 100 CP. At 100 CP, the city gains a culture level, which pushes out its borders. Gaining 4 CP per turn means Aksum will hit the next level in 10 turns.

You also get a breakdown of where the CP is coming from. 2 CP is coming naturally because my leader is a Creative one. 2 CP is coming from the presence of my Palace, the building automatically built for you when you make your capital. Simple, huh?

When borders expand, that doesn't mean the city can work any land it encompasses. Cities can only work land within two tiles no matter how large the borders get. However, any land within your borders is yours. Enemies cannot breach it without declaring war, and no barbarians or wild animals can spawn within them. Your military units also recover health much faster within your territory than without.

When two civilizations' borders contest the same tile, that's when "border wars" start. Whichever city produces the most culture claims the tile, although it can change infinite times throughout a match. Cities that are more "firmly established" will be less likely to give up their tiles. For example, the tiles directly around Aksum will never flip to a rival's control unless pretty much a rival has taken control of my entire empire. Culture wars take place among new cities far more frequently.

When a civilization's border touches an enemy city, the city has a chance of flipping, which results in a no-loss conversion to the better civilization. All military units in the city are relocated back to the original owner. If the original owner tries to attack the city to try to take it back, they are flagged the aggressor of a war, which could bring the wrath of the world. So, simply put: borders? Are very important.

So that's why I'm going for the Stele. There will be plenty of time to work the land later: I want quantity tiles over quality right now.